The present invention relates to a piezoelectric/electrostrictive device, more particularly to a piezoelectric/electrostrictive device which is suitable for an actuator for a magnetic head and which is superior in vibration isolation properties.
Important basic characteristics of a hard disk drive or the like lie in that a magnetic head can be positioned in a targeted specific data track.
On the other hand, in the hard disk drive or the like, in recent years, it has been strongly demanded that the magnetic head is more precisely positioned in the specific data track with densification of data and progress of high-rate access.
Under this situation, examples of a piezoelectric/electrostrictive device for use as an actuator for the magnetic head of the hard disk drive include a device including: a substrate including two arm portions formed of thin-plate members and extended from opposite ends of a support portion formed of a thick member; and a driving member including at least one pair of electrodes and one piezoelectric/electrostrictive layer which are fixed to at least one arm portion of the substrate as described in JP-A-2002-26412.
However, even with the above-described piezoelectric/electrostrictive device, occurrence of off-track has resulted in a serious problem with further densification of data and high-rate access.
In recent years, in the hard disk drive or the like, it has been essential to rotate a hard disk at a high speed in order to satisfy the demand for the high-rate access. However, as shown in FIG. 7, since the high-speed rotation of a disk 21 generates an airflow 22 at a wind velocity of about 10 to 50 m/s in the drive, a magnetic head 24 attached to a tip of a suspension vibrates by the airflow 22, and a problem of the off-track occurs. Moreover, it is expected that this problem becomes more remarkable with further densification of data and high-rate access, and there has been a strong demand for solution of the problem.